Almost Lover
by DevonWren
Summary: Foremost Kinn, some Finchel, some Puckleberry-Finn, and then if you squint really hard there might be some Puckurt. Please R&R! Now Beta'd - thanks to Tianne and TheLongFallOfProse x Finn's unsure after something his mom said; does he need to love Kurt?
1. Chapter 1

_**Now fully Beta'd, which is a great relief - so thank you TheLongFallOfProse and Tianne for doing that. Please tell me what you think ! R&R **_

_**Constructive Criticism is very much appreciated.**_

_**Monday**_

It wasn't as if Kurt Hummel could help it. Half the time, it wasn't as if he _wanted_ to help it. His eyes just had a delicious habit of straying to wherever Finn Hudson was sitting, surveying the respective back, chest or face with a vacant expression - which Mercedes now anticipated and fully understood - for lengthy periods of time. With that inability came the inability to control what was happening inside him, emotionally, as well as the fluttering and squirming and dizziness (but those spells had been growing less frequent over the passing months).

Finn noticed it; and did nothing but smile at the affectation.

―

Finn dumped his backpack on the sofa, as if the effort itself was beyond necessity, huffing his annoyance as he heard his mother's soft humming drifting down the hallway. _Just keep your face straight—_ and he tried, grimacing like a gargoyle until he was confident his skin was loose enough to feign contentment (or any other expression that might be called for).

"Finn, honey, why didn't you remember to—?" she stopped in the lounge doorway, eyeing him carefully up and down with pupils that dilated into their irises the way ink blossomed through fibres of paper, her lips parted in a careful arch. "Finn, what's wrong?" said her motherly concern. _Stop sulking and tell me whatever the hell's happened, _said her intellect.

Her son was silent for a moment, eyes skirting cautiously to one side, his body rigid, certain that he hadn't been _that_ obvious. But he hadn't needed to be: when you've lived beside someone and watched their every move, you begin to learn how their mind works, how they function; this being something that Finn didn't know or understand, so the denial was obligatory. "What're you talking about? There's nothing wrong."

She folded her arms. _Why don't I believe you?_ etched in every line of her face, and even Finn wasn't stupid enough to miss that. A _Just tell me_ would have shortly followed. But Finn caved, momentarily pondering over how easy it would be to let the words slip from his mouth and perceive her reaction, knowing that he was only putting off the inevitable.

"Okay, so it's nothing you need to worry about." He folded his arms across his chest, and his mother didn't miss the defensive stature—she just chose to bombard straight through. Her battalion shaped by years of experience galloped fiercely behind her, and her son's petty armour of counteractions didn't stand a chance.

"Tell me anyway," her statement was mandatory, no thought needed and no practice to ensure that it sounded right.

Gradually, her eyes began to penetrate her son's procrastination and he spoke, "Me and Rachel have hit a rocky patch."

No eye contact; only the sheer dearth of ripeness was allowed to tell his immaturity. But Carole understood, because she'd been there. Seeing that her son was in need of some reassurance or at least some sugar-coated truths, not the tonnes of derogatory '_you're not old enough to hit a rocky patch'_ statements she could have spewed into her son's already reluctant ears. She perched on the arm of Burt's sofa instead, clasping her hands on her lap. Beautiful concern played in her eyes, her mouth, her brow. She had a whole lifetime to play lecturer, so today she assumed psychiatrist.

"She avoids seeing me. She barely talks to me unless we have a Glee club assignment. Like, it was all fine at first, she wouldn't leave me alone. And, it was great. But now, she just doesn't seem interested. She's started following Puck around, like she's trying to get him back," Finn rambled, again, incessantly amused by how easy the words were coming to him. Fingers flickered beside him at the mention of his former best friend.

"Have you done anything to push her away?" she ventured, knowing that this may be a gamble too far. A trickling of anger rose in Finn's throat at the suggestion that this could be _in any way_ his fault. He'd been nothing but kind to her, he'd done exactly what she'd wanted. Surely?

"No!" he half yelled, but his hesitation might have cost him, voice sizing his mother up for her coffin. "I always made sure she came first! You can ask Kurt, he's nearly always there..." he trailed off, remembering the expression he'd seen the previous day, Rachel's usually angelic face contorting when Kurt had shown him the new designs for their bathroom, because the bathroom had been so important. Kurt was always trying, perhaps too hard, to win Finn over; this being something he was growing increasingly wary of. Not that he hated it, not that it drove him crazy, not that he wanted it to stop, especially with Rachel's distance, and it was nice to have someone show an interest; even if Kurt's 'interest' _was_ bordering on obsession.

"Okay. Well, if you're sure," she played with the laced hem of her blouse, looking downwards before continuing, "Do you think she's bored?"

A hand emerged in defence as she saw her son's outrage, his own hand going up to protest his innocence, "I'm just saying—!" she paused, letting him know she was serious in the nicest way possible, "—that you're both young, and relationships like the one you're expecting don't come easily to teenagers. You're all so fickle." As a mother, she had a right to set her son in place, to let him know that being a teenager was _not_ like being an adult. Finn was silent, never reading into anything his mother said because he lacked the emotional capacity–Carole's point exactly.

"Do you feel _your_ attention wandering?" She asked, watching her son's brow furrow as he considered it—"I don't understand," he muttered, although he understood perfectly well. He was just biding his time, waiting for his mom to say something to which he could explode again. Any release of anger, confusion and frustration was duly welcomed.

"Do you look at other girls?"

"No!" Finn's voice was loud and cracking again, breaking through its own parameters because he didn't feel _she_ understood. "What–? Why would you–? How–! I'm your son, don't you think–?" Garbage, and he knew it. "No."

"I'm just saying." That was all she _could _do.

"Well, don't!" He heaved his bag back onto his shoulder, glaring the floor into next week, but his mom's voice caught his attention like a fish on a line before he got the chance to try one of Rachel's storm-outs.

"Finn. Honey, I want you to think about this–and I appreciate that you probably don't want to, but maybe Rachel losing interest in you is killing your interest in her. It is so much harder to love someone who doesn't love you back." She left the inverse to be sought out by her son, in his own time. The time he definitely didn't need, because, from her philosophical endeavour to broaden her son's perceptions, he immediately understood that what she'd really meant was that _it is so much easier to love someone who loves you in return_. He knew she just wanted him to find that someone, and so he had to pray that he could craft that someone from the Rachel that was increasingly present. Maybe he could just flick back a few pages and find the Rachel who'd made him those matching calendars and crept inside his head without permission. He'd prefer the airplane-talker-Rachel to the one who rarely ever spoke. To him, at least.

_Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!_ was screaming over any other thoughts, when his rationality inevitably evaded him, as words tended to do inside peoples' heads—you could be having a relatively peaceful, comprehensive conversation with a sensible part of your brain, whilst another was hurling abuse at you for ignoring the other half of your conscience. Yelling '_why did everyone have to stick their nose in?_ Maybe he should just learn not to confide in people about these things...

He sulked his way into the kitchen, flinging open the refrigerator door with the apathy he'd utilised to abuse his bag and snatching up a milk carton. The smell of some weird salad stuff hit him full on in the face, causing him to wrinkle his nose in disgust. How anyone could possibly eat that sort of thing evaded him, even though he knew Kurt did. He_ tried_ to understand Kurt. Needless to say, he hated salad dressing, especially that French one.

Kicking the door shut as he walked over to the cupboard, there was one question that was on his mind, and it was itchy and inflamed: w_hy doesn't Rachel love me like she used to?_ He then reminded himself he was supposed to stop asking himself the meaningful questions; they hurt his brain, and he had enough stress at the moment. _Maybe he should just let them drift apart...? _

No. _Apart_ meant _alone_; Finn really didn't want to be alone.

He spent the next half hour drowning his sorrows in a glass of milk, half praying that Kurt would leave whatever bathroom design project and intricately detailed interior sketches he had going on downstairs to come and comfort him. Kurt was good at that, although he had a strangely fascinating way of doing it—insulting him, only disguising it as compliments.

Finn smiled at the thought, _'I admire your versatility, Finn, it's amazing that you can both _think_ about food _and_ eat_ _it,'_ Kurt said after Finn had spent nearly a whole morning debating over a Mars bar or a Mars bar ice-cream. Kurt had snatched the ice-cream off of him and shut it back in the freezer, so the decision was made, claiming that it was the last one and his dad would want to eat it whilst he was watching the basketball later. Finn had eaten the chocolate and tried desperately not to let it smear around his lips, receiving several disgusted, disapproving _why-do-you-put-so-much-junk-in-your-body_ glares from Kurt, but then at about half six in the evening Kurt had driven off with no explanation only to come back a quarter of an hour later with a new pack of the tasty ice treats claiming that it was because Finn was acting out-of-sorts and needed a pick-me-up. So, naturally, that night's pig-out was Kurt's fault. But then, that had been the day he'd first noticed something was up between him and Rachel; he reckoned Kurt had guessed that _that_ was the something that was up. The gesture had been nice, sure, but there were so many undertones—what with Kurt harbouring some sort of forbidden love for him. But Finn didn't get so creeped out by that anymore; in fact, he kind of liked the interest now that it was more sort of, _Finn, can I help you with that?_ or _Finn, you should buy a new t-shirt, that one's positively atrocious_, instead of, _I honestly love you_, because that had screwed with his mind.

Eyes glued to the banister visible through the doorway, it was as if he was trying to summon Kurt and his undivided attention up from where he sat without so much as moving a vocal cord. Occasionally, he thought he heard Kurt humming and his heart fluttered with excitement, but that was nothing new.

The melody of Kurt's voice was caramel when he heard it, perfectly soft, warm and forever sweet. Sometimes, it was the only thing he thought he'd ever need to hear: it could sing so high, so low and so wonderfully; it could talk with words that Finn didn't understand and didn't even want to understand; and it sounded like silk compared to Rachel's, which sometimes seemed to scratch. Although, that could be because he really didn't want to listen to her right now.

_Why was his mother so insensitive?_ That's what he wanted to know. Why had she suggested something so bizarre?—or maybe Finn just hadn't been expecting it. Maybe he should listen. Maybe finding someone who properly loved him in return would make him happy, and then the whole thing with Rachel would be over as well.

Rachel. He did think he really loved her, like full-body, full-heart, full-whatever-else-there-was-to-love-with—so was it really that easy to give her up, with nothing more than a snap mental decision? Probably not, things rarely were–he learned that from Puck and Quinn.

―

Later that night, he tottered down the clinically white stairs that lead to his room with very little conscious thought going into what he was actually doing. One foot in front of the other. His mother's words were sparking some meaning in his brain, but he seemed to lack the aptitude to truly decipher it. Like a Spanish lesson with Mr Shue. This only seemed to hurt his heart more than his head. _Did he really want to lose Rachel again? But was it really _keeping_ her if she was this distant?_ He didn't know the answer to either. Truthfully, the idea of knowing the answers was scarier than being oblivious. He liked to consider decisions, not make them.

"I decided on _Alice in Wonderland_ tonight."

The shrill, captivating voice of his would-be brother brought his thoughts to something trivial. Pleasantly. He couldn't help but notice how that spark of meaning seemed to flicker in his chest, slightly muffled by the sheer amount of joy that seeped through him upon seeing the boy. If someone painted what wonderful would look like, it would definitely end up being Kurt's portrait.

"What?" he replied, keeping his eyes on Kurt's face and the smirk that appeared there, appointed by the ignorance.

"It's Monday; don't tell me you forgot that too?" A hand went to a hip, a smile so thin and wide and radiant bloomed, and Finn embarked on the gradual training course that would eventually teach him how to forget his problems.

"'Too?' What else did I forget?" he asked, stringing out the conversation as long as possible so he could hear that voice and not understand why it felt so good in his ears, so he could watch the unspoiled cerise blush that splayed under those cheekbones and see the way those eyelids occasionally flicker, and the way a lock of hair always looked ready to fall over steaming green eyes but never quite found the courage to.

"You were supposed to pick up Carole's dry cleaning," Kurt sighed, his head titling to the side in a way that most would associate with an older brother looking down at his younger. "In the future, I'd _really_ appreciate it if you remembered, because, A, even _my_ brain can't handle the sheer incomprehensibility of another of my dad's texts, and B, the man behind the counter has creepy shrimp-eyes. That and he keeps winking. D'you know, last Tuesday, when I went to pick up my Golden embroidered jacket, he actually asked me if I was interested in his daughter's red stilettos—because _she doesn't think she's woman enough for them_! Can you _actually _believe that? Either he has a hideous misconception about the difference between a gay man and a woman, or he genuinely thought I _was_ a woman. I can't deal with that..." Kurt's eyes became sharp and focused, forehead wrinkling as he tried to distinguish between Finn's 'confused and nonchalant' face, and his 'sad' face.

"Finn, what's up?" he finally asked, his chin tilting upwards, eyebrows knitted together; and almost instantly his face went from anger, hurt and embarrassment (with a touch of sarcastic humour) to unparalleled empathy, or at least, the desire to be empathetic and unparalleled.

Finn didn't seem to be able to concentrate long enough to answer at first. A sizzle of something danced in his chest, something he didn't recognise yet he also did, as if his own emotions were weaving an incomprehensible riddle all of their own. Then again Finn never thought in that many words, and to him it was more, _w__hy is my chest hurting? _

"Uh. Oh, nothing. I'm fine."

Lying to Kurt had become as natural as food digestion; half the time he wasn't aware it was happening. Finn never liked to talk about his feelings unless he felt truly comfortable using _dud_e to begin the conversation, and Kurt's small, angularly circular face and his impeccable hair and tight, resonating voice failed to suit the word. It was something Finn was not the only one to have picked up on; Coach Sylvester still insisted on calling him '_Ladyface_,' and everyone else bar Mercedes, Finn and other Glee Clubbers resolved to refer to him as something meaning the same as, if not actually, '_Queer.'_

"It's Rachel isn't it?"

Finn blinked, determining whether or not that had been weird. "Woah," Finn said, his eyes widening and nervously flicking to the wall. He remembered these mind tricks from Rachel. "What made you think that–? How–? How did you know–?" he stumbled, nearly all at once.

"Your facial expressions and thought processes aren't exactly enigmatic," Kurt sighed, raising an eyebrow and for a moment turning away. Finn couldn't tell why. Shame? Drawn out longing?

"Well. That's great. I don't know what enigfatic means, but sure, whatever."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

And there it was again. The movement of a hand to aid a delicate perch on the end of a bed that screamed _ulterior motive_, and suddenly Finn was uneasy, his breathing irregular as he recognised the situation; he recognised the very position from the week with the Ballads, with the sonogram. Kurt's perseverance in a crush that was _never _going to amount to anything was ineffectual, but still he tried. The notion rankled with Finn's nerves, sending his stomach and mind to jelly—only to be replaced by the most skin-crawling certainty: _Kurt loved him even when he wasn't loved in return. _

Wait. What did that mean? His mind was suddenly buzzing, the meaning dancing the Waltz and then the Foxtrot, and finally the Rhumba. And why was someone throwing confetti? The confetti seemed to flutter above his ambiguity, twirling in a formation that spelled a question. Did that mean that it should be easier for Finn to love Kurt than it should be for him to love Rachel? Gliding into it further, was his mom's hypothesis dependent on sexuality? Whatever, Kurt's intense gaze had begun to burn different circles into his skin. They _felt_ different. They felt a hell a lot more acceptable, even more acceptable than the acceptable he'd felt at the kitchen table, and like being trapped in a suit full of water, someone unzipped the front and let him step out. The spark of meaning blossomed into a fire that evaporated any of the remaining droplets. And that was it. As quickly as that, Finn had realised how fickle teenagers really were, and how Rachel was no longer _everything_.

But Kurt was a _guy_!

Surely he was just clutching at straws, but the sizzle in his stomach didn't feel like pre-diarrhoea or impending vomit. It felt like the happiness he felt when he thought of Rachel, back when she still enjoyed engaging in his conversation about pizzas and the best places to buy X-box games. Really, he thought, Puck was the best one to talk to about that kind of stuff. He knew how to appreciate it. Rachel just kept trying to relate it back to some weird stage show, like _Spring Awakening—_needless to say, her links were tenuous. Usually based purely on the fact that one of the said games might have Zombies in it, and 'awakening' sort of meant a similar thing. Finn never understood that part of Rachel, the part that was so insistent on being smothered by nothing other than herself. He understood the other parts, but never that one.

Kurt, on the other hand, thought about himself, but Finn could see his reasoning: skincare to keep his skin nice and soft, a new wardrobe to make sure he looked cool, and Kurt really did, although, at the same time, Kurt always had time for other people. Especially Mercedes, and that made Finn jealous. Jealousy was something he always felt with Rachel, the way she tended to look at Puck, and when she had been with Jesse.

This was either Finn's brain addressing every little humbug that buzzed around his head one by one, or he was trying to make a connection between his relationship with Rachel and his relationship with Kurt. As if his brain wanted him to go for it with Kurt, to just try it. Go on, it said; it'll be just like with Rachel—not that every part of him wanted that. Puck doesn't need to know, and neither does Rachel, nor does Santana, or Mercedes... oh, crap. Finn couldn't keep secrets.

Besides... Kurt was a guy. Finn was straight. That made them instantly incompatible, right? Or was God suddenly a huge fan of Bromance?

Maybe it would be better if he considered the prospect he was vaguely suggesting, just as he liked to consider decisions. So he blinked trustingly before closing his eyes, watching the vision of an increasingly confused-looking Kurt disappear until he was submerged by darkness. But he wasn't, he was in the same place, with the same white-grey walls, with the same bed, with the same stunning quietness, and Kurt was there, only he was smiling and radiant and looking really nice and everything. And then Finn was leaning in, his eyes closing for the second time, with nothing more than a simmer of adrenaline, and he was so close to Kurt's lips. In his mind he couldn't feel the warmth of the breath he knew would be there, stuttered and disjointed— an evidence of the theory he would be acting on—and then the skin, soft, he would imagine—

"Finn?"

"—Hmm?" his eyes flashed open, presently caught off-guard by the _oh-my-god-what-the-hell-are-you-doing _glare that was on Kurt's face after watching his crush close his eyes sleepily in mid-conversation. Obviously torn between taking offence and calling the doctor, he leaned closer. Finn had the feeling he was checking for dilated pupils.

"You had your eyes closed. Why was that?" Kurt uttered, and the proximity of his face to Finn's made the latter feel perturbed—or was it, rather, that it _should_ be making him feel perturbed, because he was supposed to fancy the guy. Maybe...

He looked at the unusually triangular nose, and the perfectly, almost stiffly symmetrical lips and those piercing pale eyes that just seemed all warm and lovely, and thought that maybe, just maybe, Kurt was kind of pretty.

"Oh. I—I'm just tired," he fake-yawned, tapping his mouth thrice and then dropping the hand limply to his side again. From where Kurt was sitting, staring up at him so keenly, and with him standing, not knowing if he was unable to move or if he just didn't want to, he felt as though he was being interrogated; assessed.

"Do you want to skip the movie?" the smaller, sitting boy blinked, glancing over to the television briefly, and then rearranging his hands.

"No. No. The movie is good, I know how much you like Johnny Depp," Finn's stomach twisted as he feigned a smile, but he didn't know why.

Kurt nodded and found some sort of ease after the terrible mention of Rachel's name, and he, too, managed a half-hearted grin and went about setting up the film, assuming a seat next to Finn on the couch within a few minutes. Finn peered out of the corner of his eye and took in the little frame of a boy that was curled up beside him, who sighed when a certain actor's name popped up in the opening credits.

Kurt had been good to him. Really good. He'd been there. He'd forgiven. He'd tried his hardest to be nothing but nice. Even in the blanket/privacy partition incident, Finn internally shrivelled when he recalled it, finding his actions more uncouth with every recollection. He tried to stick up for him (if he ignored the post-trauma disdain). He determined within the hour that that was more than he'd deserved.

―

Finn curled the duvet under his toes and tried to listen to Kurt's heavy yet even, calming breathing as if it were a lullaby. He liked to sit and listen to Kurt sleep, never understanding why people liked to _watch_ people sleep, because hearing someone sleep was so much more peaceful. Repetitive and level, it was very often that Kurt's deep breaths would lead him delicately, with an almost invisible transition, into his own slumber.

But tonight, he couldn't concentrate. Tonight, his mind was plagued by the words of his mother; a fear that he may be thinking too much into what she had said, a fear that he may do something he will regret. Conversely, he equally mused that anything with Kurt could not be a mistake. Like he thought earlier, Kurt had only ever been good to him. _But did that mean he would be good _for _him?_ Who knows? Finn certainly didn't. But he wished he did.

With an absence of any distinguished monotony, Finn surrendered to the perpetual repetition of the three main sections of his very own emotional Venn diagram. There was Kurt in one shape. There was Rachel. Then there was doubt in the centre.

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**_Thanks x - please R&R_**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Thanks again to TheLongFallOfProse and Tianne for Betareading this Chapter, and once again, please tell me what you liked, and especially what you didn't so I can improve x**_

_**This Chapter is still for Becky x**_

_**Tuesday**_

"Kurt..." Finn started to say after approaching the smaller boy in the choir room. Down his spine he felt a misplaced chill that represented his turgid lack of confidence. Kurt nodded to Mercedes to leave with more than a banal dose of agitation in the swift tilt of his head, and the wide eyes that followed her betrayed a type of fear. Nevertheless, she did so dutifully, but there was a hint of threatening in her otherwise warm expression as she glanced at Finn's direction. Subsequently, Finn restrained himself from visibly shivering.

"Well, hello, Finn Hudson. How can I help?" His eyes were almost immediately set back into their calm facade. The ice that encased his body and numbed Finn's nerves began to thaw, giving way to a feeling that was altogether more comfortable and comforting. That may well have been the effect of Kurt's eyes; and the invisibility of the fear didn't take much to know it was there.

At any rate, he smiled; the appeased part of him warmed under the routine formality that they shared at school. At home, it would just be '_Finn_.'

A rise in Kurt's eyebrows accompanied the twist in Finn's lip, and the silence, but he hastened to return one of his own: knowing that the bomb had yet to be dropped. A smile would surely soften its landing; and perhaps if Kurt's horoscope (which he hadn't yet got round to reading) wasn't as pessimistic as it frequently had been, then disable the explosion. An explosion in whom? He speculated.

"Kurt, I was wondering..." The words got caught in his throat, a mesh of miserably confused and equally certain verbs and adjectives—he honestly didn't know what he had been wondering about, and now he felt incapable of saying anything at all.

Silence becoming his only continuation, and feeling the confidence, the arrogance seep from whatever lead-lined, perfectly disguised capsule he had stored them in, seconds ticked by. With them, went his concentration. He was not even awake enough to take in Kurt's worried gaze, the knitted brows, and the loose set of his mouth.

"Finn, you don't look too well. Do you want to see the nurse?" Kurt waited patiently for an answer, his hand twitched at his side, ready to place a comforting pressure on the taller boy's shoulder. But his social status refused to let it, however; _Finn wouldn't appreciate that._

"Finn?" he asked again.

Brown eyes became unfocused, Finn's mind swirling with everything he thought he wanted, everything he knew he wanted (although the list was few), and everything he knew Kurt wanted. But to distinguish between the three? "Kurt," he tried again, shaking himself out of whatever part-conscious stupor he allowed himself to fall into, his chest burning as he remembered the previous time he'd left a conversation with Kurt without moving his feet. "I was wondering... if... you could help me make it up to Rachel...?" he knew it was a bad idea as soon as the words fled his mouth—Finn might be stupid with Spanish and Math and Chemistry and loads of other stuff, but he knew the difference between right and wrong when it came to Kurt (after the... _Incident_).

This was definitely wrong. Maybe further sub-sectioned under horrific.

The person in front of him stiffened and his eyes levelled; his breath stopped altogether, his mouth closing callously with gritted teeth behind it in a firm reluctance that looked to be concealing the truth. Arms were crossed and locked gazes unlocked. "Sure." He snapped with a bite that Finn didn't think he should recognise, but knew he did; his usually soft soprano voice sounding piercing and unnaturally sharp.

For the first time in a while, Finn didn't feel awkward because of Kurt's crush on him; he felt awkward because of his own blatant misuse of it. He just metaphorically torn Kurt's heart from his chest, stabbed it, pranced around with it a bit, showing off about the pain to the boy to whom it belonged, and then shoved it back in his chest and run out giggling like a school girl. He felt like crap. Indisputably, he imagined Kurt felt worse.

"What do you want to know? Although, I feel obliged to point out that, if we exclude Brittany, I haven't really had much experience with girls," Kurt heaved his messenger bag onto his left shoulder, letting his eyes wander to everywhere that wasn't Finn, and began towards the door.

"No... Um... I'm sorry Kurt. It was a stupid thing to say. All I ever seem to do is hurt your feelings, and I promised I'd try and stop people doing that to you," Finn mumbled, rubbing his scalp in the way one would when nervousness attacks, and watched the shade-covered eye contact Kurt was sharing with the floor. "It wasn't even what I wanted to say."

And finally, the cogs in his brain stopped for long enough to let him see what they were turning, and he realised exactly what_ 'he wanted to say' _was, and the cruelty and despicable vanity that it exuded made it feel like an illness; the pleasure and wonderful sense of being made it feel like a remedy—'_Kurt, I think I might need to love you.' _That was all sincerity would allow.

"What were you going to say? Because choosing something that's going to hurt me because you don't want to tell me the other thing—well, that's nothing short of vindictive." A now-softer voice interjected, but it kept some of its previous sting.

"It's nothing, it's really not important," he tried to smile, but looking down at the wide and eager eyes that were slowly resigning themselves to more of the same, he knew it really was.

―

Kurt watched Finn leave for a moment, his mind frantically plucking at strings and tapping at keys as if it were trying to create its very own rendition of the Titanic theme song, with a little more than a precious minute before the recording.

He cursed himself for, once again, thinking that Finn had anything other than pain to talk to him with, that there was ever anyone other than Rachel that could cause that look of discomfort, that _particular_ look of discomfort; the one was only ever shaped by a desire to love.

Finn was trying to sort out 'him and Rachel,' and Kurt allowed himself only to be thankful that Finn had cut short the admission before the hurt got too much, before he had to close his ears and run out of the room with tart tears stinging like lemon juice in his tear ducts. Because, after the situation with the blanket and privacy partition, that was the only way he and Finn could talk about feelings: with Finn unloading about Rachel, and Kurt trying not to cry. He feared that no number of declarations could undo that.

A state of anguish overcame him whenever he recalled Finn trying to talk to him about anything that actually _meant_ something. The lump that rose in his throat when he'd perched on the end of Finn's bed, listening patiently with absent judgement, and, usually, absent truth, was habitual now. He kept everything he felt from revealing itself through expression; sitting silently as Finn complained: usually with anger more apparent than sadness. These experiences of strangled emotion had gone on to teach Kurt something, something he knew he'd need in the days to come: tears won't stem themselves.

Thankfully, his tears were soon becoming tears for Finn's pain, not his own. Not today. He didn't think he could take it today. Two dumpster tosses (and he hadn't been dumpster tossed for weeks) and one slushie (again, there had been no slushies for a while) left his nerves cruelly exposed. Quite literally if you looked at his left hip.

Kurt waited all of ten minutes before he left the room, determined not to bump into Finn again; he'd like to keep the evidence of tears to himself. Within those ten minutes, Kurt made himself a promise: he would be to Finn a brother, nothing more. He would listen to his grief with a detached sympathy that he thought appropriate, he would offer advice to calm Finn's nerves, and he would always have a shoulder available to cry on. He would not, however, allow himself the harrowing pleasure of self-pity, because Kurt Hummel was above such things.

'_It's for the best._' He lied.

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**_Thanks for reading, please R&R_**


	3. Chapter 3

_**As always, thanks to TheLongFallOfProse for betareading this chapter. And please R&R!**_

* * *

_**Wednesday**_

"Finn?" came a small, ringing, delicate voice from behind him, a voice he'd usually have felt blessed to hear, a voice he usually craved. Now, however, he wanted the ringing to stop; he wanted the small, delicate, and unusually perfect voice of his best friend instead. The one he knew he had to love. Kurt's voice now fell easy on his ears, and stirred nothing but happiness in his stomach. This voice gave him cramps and made him want to slap the side of his head hoping to make it stop, because, really, _why wouldn't it stop?_

"Hi, Rachel," he tried to grin, one he always saved for her where the skin scrunched up under his eyes and his lips curled up to one side, letting her see only half of his set of teeth. The one that told her he loved her, the one that he knew made her feel dizzy. The number of times he'd practiced it in the mirror these past few days, trying to get it perfect again because he wanted to see her blink three times and then grin a little absently. He loved how she did that. But he told himself that that grin was for Kurt now, and something twisted in his throat.

"I haven't really spoken to you today," her teeth tugged at her lower lip, a vision of churlish nervousness that should have been absent. Rachel used to radiate confidence, with wide eyes and toothy smiles, something he admired in her, so this sudden change was unnatural; it was so not... _Rachel_. Now she had the air of someone who was resisting the urge to look behind her shoulder, someone who had a conscience plagued with something black that, evidently, she hated.

"No. I guess not," he said, looking away, making sure that that crazy Jacob kid wasn't lurking in the shadows, ready to suck up another supposedly 'juicy' story. The coast was clear. "But then, you didn't really speak to me yesterday, or the day before." He snapped, because, damn it, he wanted her to hurt like he did.

"No. I guess not," she replied.

The repetition of his own words kind of chilled his spine a little. He loathed how she always seemed to be a centimetre too far into his head, his thoughts; the way she saw a reason behind everything he did portrayed him as her inferior. "Finn?" she tried, breathing lightly at the end of the word, as if she was testing him, before continuing, "Are you mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad at you? Should I be mad at you? Have you been seeing Puck?" Pausing, he leant forwards, watching carefully as her eyes widened and shifted awkwardly around in their sockets—

"_Again_," he added for good measure. A spine of pleasure at seeing her perplexed caught him off guard, and he had to dig his teeth into his upper lip to disable an unrequested smile, then it was mingled with disgust as he saw her contemplation. He missed being able to rely on Rachel to never be hiding anything, how she always told the explicit truth whether you wanted her to or not, although, it might just be that she was crap at lying – Jesse had proved that point.

"And whose help exactly did you receive to come up with that hypothesis?"

"Erm..." he guessed at what she meant, and fury at her belief in his own incompetence pricked his ears back and clenched his fists, "I can work things out for myself, Rachel. You've been lapping at his heels for the past week."

"Puck's changed, Finn. Only a little bit, but he's had a taste of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a slushie, and he's expressed his displeasure at the situation. So, naturally, he's reconsidering his behaviour."

"And you're helping him," he deduced. Finn had to admit that Puck had been acting differently: there were fewer snide comments; a dearth of overconfident smiles now left his expressions open for sincerity, and occasionally, he would be silent for days on end—but maybe that was just when Finn was around. It wasn't deemed natural for Finn to feel a sense of loss alongside that recognition: after all Puck had done, why should he be getting all nostalgic over their past mistakes? Maybe it was because Puck had always offered an uncomplicated relationship; they'd known where they were with each other – something that was void in his life at the moment, even his relationship with his mother had gotten weird last night, and don't get him started on Kurt and the heady brew of wonderfulness that invaded his stomach when he thought of him or saw him, or the heady brew of wonderfulness that used to invade his stomach when he thought of or saw Rachel. All this just went to emphasize the difference between his past and his present, and the differences he was afraid would take place.

"Maybe." Rachel's eyes averted to somewhere at the bottom of the stairwell, her hair shaking out behind her and she clutched a file to her chest. He thought he saw a breath stutter.

"No. You're not helping him; you're trying to start off that whole _Puckleberry_ thing again!"

Her attention was seized again, announced by wide eyes that neither protested her innocence nor denounced her guilt; her own fist clenched in a tight ball at her side, and her eyes narrowed, "I recognise that my dating Puck did help both our reputations, although I don't care for that sort of a relationship—" her left eye twitched, "—late night booty calls, and _sexting_. Another thing I recognise, Finn, is _jealousy!"_ She was starting to yell now, and her voice, only amplified, was cutting enough to hurt Finn's ears.

"I'm supposed to be _your boyfriend_! It's natural for me to get jealous!" Finn spat. The insinuation that this was his fault ignited his desire for an argument, for some closure. On the other hand, he knew how brutally unfair he was being, considering the feelings he felt when he thought about Kurt and the relative intentions; at that moment, he didn't care.

"Well maybe I don't like the restriction that that comes with it. If I'm not even allowed to talk to Puck," a nervous quiet constrained the volume of her voice, as she knew that this was the clincher. Her eyes slowly lowered to watch the floor as if there was nothing else of any interest.

"It's not the talking I have a problem with—it's the smiling and fluttering your eyelashes like someone's just chucked a load of dust all over you. And it used to be you with all the restrictions and the timetables and calendars and matching crap and stuff! You're being such a hypo... a hypocrat!" he threw a fist in the air.

"It's hypo_crite_, Finn,"

"Whatever!"

"How do you even know that word?" Amicability returned to her voice as quickly as it had left, and Finn thought he heard something of the Rachel he'd known before; the one who dared to show an interest in him, as ardent as it was.

"I heard Kurt use it."

Rachel hummed in acknowledgement, then nodded curtly, speaking the final words of the argument with venom on the end of her tongue, "Well, I guess that's it then. We should take a break."

Finn said and did nothing, accompanied by a lack of regret and anger. An anguish that came with upheaval left only emptiness in his chest, the feeling bland enough to convince him that he didn't really care. Only, secretly, where only he could hear his egotistical gratitude, he thanked God or whoever was up there for the lack of the usual _you're-dumped! _spiel; that would have been rubbish and humiliating.

Conversely, he did think that Kurt would have handled the situation better, with that suave confidence that allowed him to be quick off the mark and the unprecedented ability to perceive a person's weakness and strength, having done nothing more than watch them for five minutes. Or maybe he just had a bank of insults that applied to everyone?

Either way, there was a lot he could learn from Kurt. The prim, carefully crafted expressions and slow, purposeful blinks portrayed the boy's intelligence and there was always a glint in his eyes that made you think you knew what was coming, but then he slyly went and bowled you over anyway. Those brown eyes aided the work of a true professional.

Admiration could possibly blossom into love if he focused hard enough on all of Kurt's good points: like his quirky smile, and the intensity of his eyes, and the idiosyncratic way he would hold one hand floppily beside his face as he illustriously raises his eyebrows simply because it made it look like he thought he owned the school, when really, most people thought—well, _knew _(and Kurt himself was no exception)—that he was at the bottom of the social heap. They were all delights to Finn's heart.

He knew all of the niggling suppressed insecurities though. As religious and artistic as his moisturising routine, the facade he put on every morning fooled everyone except him; he'd seen the small boy when he was at home, when there was no one to play up for, when he could truly be himself. He'd seen him cry after his moisturising routine (later claiming that he had some toner in his eye), he'd seen the swagger disappear entirely as he walked through the front door, he'd seen him slouch on his sofa to watch some crummy girl's show.

Not that that always happened. Sometimes Kurt would feel confident, and therefore, Finn would be immensely happy for him, if he got an A in Math that day or if he did a massive powerhouse solo in Glee club. Then he'd keep his head held high and shoot Finn the most superior yet sweetest smirks that Finn had seen anyone pull off. His happiness was contagious when it was there, but equally was his sadness when it wasn't. In aspect, the Kurt everyone saw at school was sixty percent a costume.

And so even if Kurt was at the bottom of the social heap, Finn decided that's where he wanted to be.

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_**Thanks for reading – things get a little more interesting from here onwards, now I've got the basics out of the way.**_

_**Please R&R!**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Thanks to TheLongFallOfProse for Betareading this chapter - as per usual :)**_

_**Thursday**_

"Hummel!"

_'Hummel'_ froze; he recognised the voice and tone from an unforgettable series of painful crushing, deliciously laced with the stench of garbage. He grabbed his bag strap, squeezing with paling knuckles and pulling it towards him in search of some non-existent protection and started walking again; this time, his steps were brisk and with more than a hint of determination. The school building didn't seem to be getting close and quick enough, so he broke into a run, leaving all of his pride and dignity behind, because he knew that today wouldn't be like any other dumpster-toss. Today was personal; today wasn't just for the sake of the grief. It was for the blood, for the humiliation it would cause _one particular_ person—him.

Kurt had gone nearly two weeks without being thrown in that god-forsaken place, and his clothes graced with fresh air for more than three minutes (the timer of his car told him so, commencing the second he hopped out of it). So why should it start again now, and with three in two days?

Because Puck was angry. And he wasn't angry just because he was; he was angry because of something Kurt had done. That was plain enough in the way Puck had mercifully left the entire nerd mob alone this morning, in search only of him. A hand on his shoulder dragged him backwards, telling him he lost.

"You don't need to do this, Noah," he said as he was spun around by thick-set hands, coming face to face with what he'd expected, which, strangely, was mingled with an unexpected dearth of something mandatory in his eyes, at least for Puck anyway. In true Kurt fashion, he kept his voice level and unfeeling as if there had never been a tremor he needed to hide.

"Oh yes I do." Those narrow throat-gripping eyes tore into his, and the Mohawk got closer for a second so he could breathe the words within a proximity, which meant that Kurt would be able to_ feel_ them in his bones, perhaps intentionally. Puck aimed for fear, or at least a blinding certainty of fear with conviction enough to induce it all the same, and that was unbecomingly absolute.

"Because you're messing with Finn's head! He's crazy at the moment," he continued. A strong hand was shoved into Kurt's shoulder as he raised his voice; Kurt winced, but his mind just wanted to stray elsewhere, having noticed something that seemed peculiar in the given situation. _Was that a hint of compassion, of caring, in Noah's voice? _"He goes all twitchy when you walk into a room and he's always trying to talk about how good you sing. I can't handle this, Kurt."

He noticed the use of his first name, the severity it brought tugging at his feet, making his head feel unnaturally heavy. Brown eyes had clouded in a somewhat tumultuous state; Kurt could perceive the untouchable insensitivity that many would presumably find there without question, but behind it he saw a pious need to protect the friend who has as good as rejected him. _It was hard to believe Puck was capable of the emotion Kurt was seeing. He liked to think __Noah__ was, but not Puck__._ "I don't think he can either,"

_Noah_ was the one who'd added an extra threat to Finn's attempt to stick up for him, clad in some clingy black leather _Kiss_ costume. _Puck's_ hand was the one that had held the slushies and gripped his leg mid-flight into a heap of garbage; _Puck_ was the one who fought for dominance in Noah's persuasion now.

"I haven't done anything," he uttered, but he already made his decision not to run, for Noah's sake.

"Don't lie to me!" The denial ignited Puck's desire to fight. A fierce hand was again thrust into the smaller, defenceless boy's shoulder, who gasped a little at the sharp click he heard and subsequently prayed it had been Puck's wrist. One small foot after the other collided with the ground, too heavy for normal footsteps as he tried to back away, but Puck only moved forwards. His eyes became more enraged with every timid endeavour to escape. Then Kurt's back hit something metal, the studs on the backs of his jeans clinking harshly. In Kurt's ears, they were a death knoll.

On the contrary, Puck didn't feel joy as he saw the mask of boredom that concealed the fear in those wide, green eyes, but neither did he want to stop; _the queer had messed up his boy's head! _Sure, he realised that he and Finn weren't exactly the 'epic bros' they'd been, but that didn't stop _Noah_ caring. _Puck_ was just his way of setting things straight. And as for this, Puck's logic was simple: if those absent gazes that lingered just a little too long on the gay kid were longing, or even remotely lustful, then Hummel had to go in the dumpster. Kurt needed to be degraded to social oblivion; he needed to feel the pain that went agreeably with encouraging Finn to try new things, hand-in-hand with being all sweet and lovely, forgiving and adoring towards someone who should never have to experience that.

He needed to learn his lesson; Finn was never going to be his, and this humiliation should tell him that. Those glances would usually have been enough to warrant throwing Finn in the dumpster, and most would even say it made more sense, but Puck was on borrowed time when it came to Finn. He missed the guy; he missed the mindless Saturday mornings that were spent blowing each other's brains out on the Xbox. He missed the mutual efforts to toss a nerd, or Kurt, into a dumpster, he missed the way Finn would gently shove him into a locker if he was caught checking out a Cheerio. He missed Finn. And Kurt's little homo-promotion plan was making the past seem so far away that he wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting it back. The truth was, behind that mask of intimidation and superiority, Puck cared. Especially about Finn.

"You're going in the dumpster today, Hummel," he spat, the words fused together to form a sound barely articulate, punctuated only by a hiss from behind his teeth.

Kurt rolled his eyes, hoping that his mask and its futile attempts at denting Puck's ego would spare him the orange juice cartons, the fish skeletons and the chicken bones. "Really? Because I thought you just wanted a chat?"

"Don't talk _down_ to me!" Puck yelled, his hands rising in an erratic bid to release his ire which went unsatisfied.

Kurt dropped the jokes. "Fine! But can I at least take off my coat? It's new and _expensive._" He looked down his nose a bit more, reaching to remove his jacket, but he was in Puck's arms way too quickly. Two of his _friends_ from behind him scooped up his torso, "Wait!" Kurt yelled, "You always let me—!"

"Not today." And with that Puck let go of the boy's legs, flinging him against the back of the steel carrier, hearing the bang, then watching him flop hopeless and defeatist into the abundance of black plastic. "You stay away from Finn. You hear me? He doesn't need some flaming queer trying to get off with him all the time!"

Kurt _heard_ the anger, but he didn't see it in Noah's eyes, not as he would have expected. The two other footballers stood leering over the side making garish chuckles and grunts, letting Puck deal with the eloquence. Kurt noted that even _he_ was failing. "When will you grow tired of fabricated stories, like, _I haven't done anything_!"

Puck kicked the side of the container, shaking the metal and bags and Kurt's bones alike, drawing attention to the squelching wet mess that Kurt could feel under his back. He then promptly left, soundlessly beckoning for his faction to follow. Kurt stuck three fingers under his coat and felt the stickiness when he pulled them out. _Geez...__ Ketchup, well that's just dandy._ It was never going to come off of the white.

However, seeing the world from an entirely different angle (but most certainly not a fresh one), Kurt apprehended that Puck could have done a lot worse. Candidly, he'd been expecting a few fist sandwiches before the moron had been done. Though they destroyed his coat and gave him one hell of searing pain in his chest and hip, they'd thoughtfully left him with all of his teeth and fingers and toes and bones unbroken. The correlation between those facts and Noah's hesitation to be gut-wrenchingly irate was, in Kurt's book, undeniable. He smiled to himself as he thought about how the attack was probably 15% peer pressure; 15% was enough for Kurt.

―

Finn sat in the back row of seats in the auditorium, staring blankly at the stage and remembering how Rachel's voice sounded between these walls. Maybe he did miss her. Maybe he missed her already. Maybe he was having second thoughts about their break, maybe he'd decided that he was very indecisive; maybe he wanted both Rachel and Kurt—maybe he wasn't allowed to, even either of them.

Anyway, he made his bed out of loads and loads of thorns so now he had to lie on it. He couldn't believe that Kurt would ever let him lie on a bed of thorns; Rachel would, but not Kurt. Kurt would probably put down some padded designer silk to ensure that he was comfortable, and then he'd lie down beside him, because he worries about loneliness, and Finn would forget about the thorns underneath because it really wouldn't matter.

He'd have Kurt; how could anything else possibly matter? There'd be a glorious smile when he awoke in the mornings that told him, with explicit affirmation, he was the most wonderful thing those bright green eyes had beheld; there'd be comprehensive attempts to steal them some alone-time, which he thought might not be strictly necessary, because when Kurt graced their company with his presence Finn was certain he was the only one in the room and everyone else just dissolved into the background. There'd be muttered confessions and painful trips to the mall; there'd be gazes that only lasted seconds but brought him enough pleasure and contentment to last him a thousand of those moments.

It was the simple things with Kurt; with Rachel everything was a performance, a giant stage production that usually involved a musical number. She'd give some grand speech explaining the depths of her heart and how they all belonged to him–something he now deemed a lie–then swoop herself into his arms, and, caught up in the moment, he'd play along. It made him want to smile when he thought of how Kurt would convey the same number of words, with the same emotion in the mere flick of his eyes.

And so he asked himself the same questions. _Did all he need really fit into Kurt's delicate body? Did Rachel Berry still love him, or even feel that she should love him? Was there any definite difference between the level of love he felt for Rachel, and the level of love he felt for Kurt?_ Tiresomely, he always had the same lack of answers; people his age were not allowed answers, it was just one of the perks of the job. He could ask himself questions regarding Spanish, regarding Math, and equally regarding the sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach that was becoming exponentially unbearable and still have no resolve. Sure, he deduced, it was okay for someone young, enthusiastic and passionate to be in love with two people—because who hadn't been?—but it_ wasn't_ okay for someone equally passionate and fuelled by hedonism, to be either one of the two, because there'd always be a fear in getting dumped and destroyed and broken. He knew he was capable of pouring every living second of himself into someone else's every living second, this being something that came with the vanity of needing to be loved.

He thought Kurt might appreciate it more. The small, brown-haired soprano had a habit of squeaking an arrogant _thank you, _or muttering a nearly inaudible _please_ when he wanted something almost as if it pained him to do it, but also as if his manners were something to be treasured; he'd look upon his courteousness, his politeness as a point of pride, hoping that those he met would remember his thanks and his grace and help him to get somewhere someday, but still refusing to reveal that their actions had any bearing over his own actions or words. Remarkably cynical and beautifully optimistic—that's what Kurt was, always expecting the worst from a situation but always hoping for the best. Finn wondered if he should carry on giving the expected at detriment to both himself and the wearer of those adoring glances, or to give him what he hoped for so he could feel the elation that came with seeing that concentration of glee in the other's eyes. The warmth and radiance would be blissful, and the thought of it was unearthing the fire of meaning he found in his mother's words last Monday afternoon.

How they'd express _gratitude_, he thought, might be the clincher, even if it's as small and seemingly insignificant as that corner of this predicament. Rachel would say _thank you _and flutter her eyelashes, admittedly sending a chill through Finn's body with their shameless flirting. Finn was fairly certain anyway that neither of them would be thanking him after this _whim_ was over—well, if Carole had been correct. If she hadn't, well, Finn could only grin at the happiness he thought he'd feel. His mind ran the risk of them hating him for all eternity, an idea that he despised; his grin quickly disappeared, bringing back his fear of loneliness...

Which thus begged the question: who was Finn going to break? Rachel? Of course. He was always going to break Rachel because she could take it. Kurt was tough and could doubtlessly handle it in the current situation even with none of Finn's feelings declared. Rachel was already looking at other guys (the notion already made his skin crawl) while Kurt had always only loved _him_.

His thoughts ceased their ramblings for a moment. Shouldn't he think about himself? Was he certain he wanted Kurt over Rachel? Or was this just his mom's doing?

_Goddamn it!_ He slapped a palm to his forehead.

"Chill, man. I've got it covered."

Finn turned his neck to see who was speaking and groaned when he saw his former best friend, feeling nothing but disgust and a magnetic repulsion. The beautiful, little, sweet yet scheming soprano was his _new_ best friend.

"Got what covered?" he blandly asked.

"Well, I take it you're hitting yourself because of that creep-ass Hummel always trying to make a move on you," Puck's nose wrinkled in repulsion, and Finn nearly hit him for being a homophobe. Then again he remembered he'd been much the same.

Finn opened his mouth to speak but a slap on his shoulder and continued speech kept him silent. "Don't deny it, I've seen the x-ray eyes he looks at you with," Puck smirked yet remained looking disgusted, "So I threw him in the dumpster and told him to leave you alone. He won't bother you again. I didn't even let him take his coat off! You should have seen his face. I thought I saw a load of old Ketchup bottles in there, too," Puck grinned like he was the official master-criminal, and his eye twitched as he toyed with the idea of winking. The thought of Kurt, and the idea that Kurt probably winked at Finn, stopped him.

"What colour was his coat?" Finn inquired, unable to make eye-contact and trying to sound benevolent, but there was an insolent bite to his manner.

"White. Why?"

"Man... _White_? He'll never get the stains out," Finn chucked a fist into his knee and gritted his teeth against the fury. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Puck barely moved, still for a moment as he processed the reaction.

"Dude, why should you care?" Hands gestured loosely to emphasise his confusion.

"Kurt's a _friend_!" Finn growled through his teeth whilst throwing himself out of the seat, partly to remove his fists from a proximity that only cultivated temptation and took one brief look back at a confused and astounded Puck.

"See, this is the kind of crap I've been trying to stop! You're getting all protective and girly over him. That ain't right. I did you a favour!"

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," he sighed, turning back towards his friend, "Now I know that you're as cruel as you are selfish!" he yelled, yielding to the itch of taking a swing at Puck's face with a red and angry fist. The Mohawk teen's run-ins with the likes of Karofsky had left him with an agility that had gone unanticipated, so he simply ducked and just stared incredulously, impudently cussing under his breath. But _boy_, it made Finn feel better to think of Puck's face all battered and smashed and bruised even if it was wishful thinking. For a moment, lashing his exasperation out almost relieved him of the weight of his upheaval.

Finn felt no anger for Rachel's attraction to Puck, he'd thought about the way her eyes lit up as he entered a room, her feet tapping the floor a few times as if she wanted to get up and run over to him, although his fists couldn't help but clench when the memory came back to him; it was natural and came surely out of habit. He was angry, however, with how Kurt had been hurt—the grazes down the side of his body felt like Finn's own, despite not having laid eyes on them yet. There was a complicated string of pain and damage that would no doubt resemble the aftermath of his capricious needs; the humiliation he knew Kurt would have felt had become a humiliation he wanted Puck to suffer—he wanted it to be so ego-crushing that Puck wouldn't be able to show his stupid stubbly head at this school ever again.

He wanted Puck gone and he wanted it to hurt. He can _have_ Rachel all he wants! He can _have_ the stress that came with how high-maintenance she was! He can _have_ the way her voice always acted as a fisherman's line when she was talking! He can _have_ the stupid amateur-dramatics love that seemed to be the only kind she was capable of expressing! Puck would deny it; the infuriating idiot would always try to have everything just like he tried to have his best friend _and_ his best friend's girlfriend and eventually the girlfriend's child; in retrospect it was the same situation but without the prospect of tiny, pattering feet.

Of course, Puck would yell and swear and violate and attempt to pummel until he thought his name was cleared, until he thought that Finn disbelieved the Puckleberry scenario (although he was tempted to call it Puckleberry Finn, with him as the outside link), but Puck had lied about Quinn before, which cost himself a best friend, so why wouldn't he be lying now? Finn knew he shouldn't care about Rachel anymore, not after what she did, all the time knowing that it shared a distinct likeness to the situation she tried to help him survive, and he most certainly did not care about the way her name still tingled in his chest. He choked on the thought, its decision suffocating him. _It was over between them. _

After the bile settled and ceased to rise in his throat he finally decided to aim for Kurt no matter what. Surely, he knew that this imprudent fool was trying to sabotage that.

"I hope you and Rachel are very happy together," he muttered on his way out, slamming the door behind him and feeling it blast some of the gunpowder frustration out of his system. He didn't bother to hear Puck's shouts of protest, that there was nothing going on between him and Rachel. She was a dweeb and he never went out with dweebs.

Down the corridor Finn strode like Coach Sylvester would, breathing heavily, ready to flatten the next thing that tried to talk to him, benign or malignant. Because, seriously, _how could Puck do this? _

Luckily, he made it to the parking lot without anything more than shoving that Jacob kid into a locker, and consequently some of his ire went through him, against the wall, whimpering that it was sorry to get in his way. He looked around, eyeing several dumpsters with the authorities' conviction. Dutifully, the guilty handed itself over—Puck's favourite spot to dumpster-toss geeks.

Finn weaved his way through the bustles of excited students, all making their way to their or their friends' car so they could get home before their brains literally implode with all the useless knowledge they spent hours acquiring. He stopped at the accused dumpster, peering down into the garbage and squinting into the shadows until he saw something slightly off-white, which remained brilliant against the black and brown of everything else. And the red... Sure, the coat was white, but that wouldn't have been such a big deal had the coat not been so darn expensive (Finn looked it up on the internet when he got home, and yes, he knew how to use Google). Kurt could afford just _any old_ new white coat easily, but not this one. _Oh, Christ, __Kurt won't be happy about that—ketchup never comes out._ Finn's mom always moaned at him for his recklessness with his food. _'__Ketchup's a nightmare to get out of clothes, Finn, why do you insist on wearing and eating it?__'_

His hand reached in to pluck it out, grimacing at the smell of rotten vegetables. General refuse wafted up to his nose—goddamn, Puck was annoying. No, Puck was infuriating. He took a mental note of the make on the small tag on the inside of the collar and chucked it back in, breathing heavily when he was out of range, and then nearly choking on his first breath as the concept of cost finally registered.

Naturally, Finn had an idea. An idea that would put all other ideas to shame... _Okay, so maybe not, but it was definitely an idea. _First though, he had to come clean. There was no way he could carry on like this, with what all these secrets and all that indecision nibbling his sanity away. He needed to try. He held his nose and dived in at the deep end, praying to God he'd be able to stand up.

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_**Thanks for reading, please review! x**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**So, I've been on holiday (abroad) for far too long, so this is my first update in weeks and weeks and possibly months. Please forgive me; I'll be better in the future. As always, please review whether you like it, hate it, or whatever else **_

_**This is Chapter Five, and it's that last of the chapters in Week One. X **_

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_**Friday**_

Carole Hudson was everything you would expect from a mother. She kept the house clean enough for its residents to live comfortably in; she'd seemingly dance around the living room attentively dusting the shelves and sometimes run the multicoloured feathers over the couch itself for good measure, and though she wasn't used to the pristine cleanliness that Kurt insisted Burt to maintain, she equally revelled in the amount of jobs to do. She was constantly occupied by banal tasks that she neither disliked nor enjoyed but merely brought her the satisfaction of feeling useful and solidifying what she thought was her right to be welcomed into this house. As she spent whole evenings with photographs in mock-ornate gold frames, she would sadly smile through her nostalgia while she disguised her longing for youth and restatement of perfect events with the careful sweep of a cloth over their glass. Burt just let her get on with it: she assured him enough that she was blissfully happy where she was, with who she was with, and he believed her. How could he not?—the way she smiled in her new family was sugary enough to convince any man.

Carole thanked Burt for her new lease of life. She didn't try to hide from anyone a slowly burning euphoria in her stomach that she didn't think would ever, or could ever, now fade; in the midst of the remembrance her chosen embodiment of the perfect housewife, though not one yet, was her way of expressing this. Even though her concentrated attention on the past remain hung and depicted in the small, sparkling-clean frames, part of her was immensely glad that they were mere memories; with a new man that she loved and a second son who brought the best out in her first, she knew she wouldn't want to change anything. The reminiscence could remain as exactly that. She wanted nothing more than the gentle, calming feeling of _family_.

It was on one such evening when his mother, sitting on the floor in the lounge and holding a frame with faded gold on the engraving's crest (because she spent so long cleaning it), noticed Finn sulk into the room in search of somewhere quiet (and perhaps Kurt-free) to relax, and to ponder. He tried to leave as soon as he saw her, backing from the room without so much as turning his neck.

She sensed it though. "Finn, you should come and look at this one. It's you when you were little. You remember that Cowboy Party, don't you?" she chuckled as she indicated the oversized hat which hung loosely over the young boy's eyes, leaving only a toothy grin visible under the rim.

Finn sighed, pausing for a moment; he deeply breathed in before re-entering the room. "Hey, Mom, I didn't realise you were in here."

She shot him a knowing look that he coincidentally missed, as he was avoiding eye contact. She turned back to her memories, "Honey, you were so small. Do you remember being one of the shortest in your class?" she sighed a little when she looked at him, surveying him top to toe, and subsequently smiling at the sheer amount of leg, stomach, torso and neck that separated those two body parts, "I don't suppose you would, now that you're so tall."

She shook her head. Finn stood in silence, his mother's words never being listened to; he was too busy trying to think of a valid reason to leave. "You know, whatever's bothering you, I could help," she continued.

Her son looked up. It was all too familiar to dismiss, "Nothing's bothering me,"

"Finn, I don't want to get into a repeat conversation of last time, because we both know I'll end up getting the truth out of you at some point."

"What if it's the same thing as before?" he tried. His body was rigid and resistant against any attempts to move and only his wrists went to emphasise his point, singularly flapping like stunted wings by his sides.

"Your face is different. It's not the same," she huffed as she stood, slowing walking over to him and later assuming an impeccably motherly smile. Her eyes were still glistening from the pain of human sentimentality, and her lips looked a little sticky, "Have you ever thought about keeping a diary?"

"What? Why would I need to do that? I don't do anything exciting. It would just be pages and pages of boring stuff... like folding sheets at work, or asking Kurt for the TV remote. Or maybe," he hesitated, "'cos sometimes I go down the road to get some ice cream—"

"I don't mean writing down everything you _do_; I mean writing down everything you _feel_. Just enough that it might feel as though you've said it, to get it off your chest," she placed a tender palm over his heart, speaking slowly and smiled, giving off the air of someone who had confidence in her own advice and was thus adamant in the fact that everyone else should too, "It worked for me after your father died. It could work for you."

"Mom, Rachel's not dead. We're just on a break,"

"So it's about Rachel then?" she couldn't keep the smile off her face at her son's subconscious stumble into revealing the truth. It was so like Finn to get caught up in the details, only to forget the plot.

"Well, yes..." he paused, watching her unreadable expression and determining that the lack of confused contortion meant she knew better than to believe his first answer, "...and no. I don't really know,"

"Exactly. Maybe writing these things down with help you put your feelings in the right order, with the right actions." She smiled and patted his chest where her hand had been resting, hoping that her son had the common sense to listen to her: anything could help. She recalled the small green book she used for all those years, how she recorded the emotions in words that formed few coherent sentences. She now remembered their emptiness.

The mother hoped her son would find a similar lack of meaning and progression in his own surrender to the vanity of self-expression, if only to convince himself that he needed to talk about it, at which time she would be ready to listen to the matters of her son's heart.

Finn blinked. His eyes watched her leave the room before he ventured over to that quaint picture of himself as a younger boy on the coffee table. Stroking the frame without realising it, he stared at what he could see of the little face, recognising very few features that he'd seen in the mirror that morning, wondering if he'd ever even thought about having these conflicted emotions when he was that age, toothily grinning. He regarded the confidence of the chubby hand that rested on a faux-leather clad hip and saw that it was a million miles away from the muddle of nervousness, from regret for things he hadn't even done, and a love that he couldn't quite place. Deciding that it would be a lot easier to still brim with youth, he placed the portrait back onto the surface and turned his back on it, timidly walking out of the door his mother had just left through, and choosing to try out another of her theories, just because he had no other options aside from the admission he was trying to put off.

―

Finn pulled up the car outside the stationery store, wound up his window (his mom explained about thieves) and then clumsily stumbled out of the door. He stood up straight, tugged the bottom of his shirt and then began walking to the store. Finn didn't bother thinking about how the day was exactly typical of July, with the sun shining and making everything glow delicately gold, making even the polluted, dirtied alleyways and roads seem respectable and somehow _nice_, with every window in every store wide open to try and circulate the air because several of the staff had passed out already (they probably only started their afternoon shift an hour ago). Clusters of friends and more-than-friends seemed to cling to the shade under trees to shelter themselves from heat, like inverse moths desperate for the light, because humans were so inclined. None of it was of any interest.

It was surprisingly dark inside, his eyesight clouding blue as he blinked against the change, because there was no room for windows between shelves and shelves of pens, pencils, books, DVDs and other items that Finn never came here for. The air carried a pleasant chill that beamed down from the vent on the ceiling, a welcome relief from the gumminess of outside; there was the indulgent smell of paper which congealed together with fruit, wood and something sweet that told him it could only be books. He smiled at the assistant and ambled over to one shelf in particular, because he saw the notice that announced _Journals_ in a font and size that could only beckon. Skimming his eyes over the gold and painted-flower covered diaries while ignoring the purple, pink and baby blue, he came across something dark green and small, something so plain and understated that he thought it wouldn't build up any anticipation for the incoherent ramblings that he would be jotting inside. He smiled, picking it up, feeling the soft, smooth paper of the cover and then taking it over to the assistant again.

Surprisingly large hands relieved him of the book and scanned it through, and all the while she was smiling. Finn thought she probably was smiling all day; they were the mandatory niceties that Kurt always pointed out when they window-shopped (because Kurt already ran out of money by that point and Finn was already laden with a hundred bags he didn't want to be seen carrying). As he left, he most definitely did not notice how her hair was as dark and silky as Rachel's, and that the large hands were like... like... _Man-hands_–because Quinn had never called Rachel that, and he had never had to find out.

―

Kurt turned his lamp off on his bedside and Finn did the same, watching a small body roll over in the bed next to his until it faced the other direction. He watched with a certain undefined jealousy as the thin covers drew arched lines over Kurt's back, hugging the skin and bones and being allowed to feel the outline without question. The sound of breathing was rather rapid, with a methodical rhythm that made it feel special to be so close, although gradually slowing, and so Finn understood it wasn't a long time to wait. For nearly half an hour, Finn observed nothing but the dwindling darkness, spreading his eyes wide because he needed to retain his sight for just a little longer. Anticipation built in his chest and his patience was tinkering out, but he kept himself still, worried that a slight ruffle of bed-clothes might disturb the slight form from his slumber.

And as if reacting to a cue—being the first of many deep breaths that reverberated as if they were snores (Kurt would deny it of course)—he whipped a small light from under his pillow and pulled the diary out from under his covers, armed with a black ball-point. Flipping open the cover so he could see the white expanse of the first page, he detected something he knew he didn't need to. This book smelled different from all of the tree-books that Kurt read; it was different to how the shop had smelled. There was less fruit, more wood, and it was sweeter. The small golden thread intended to mark the page smelt a tad nutty. It brought in a reality that was so small and worthy of ignorance that Finn was nearly too unbothered to regard it: this book was not for reading and for learning, for submerging yourself in a world that belongs to someone else; this book was for writing and teaching, for submerging yourself in a world that belongs only to _you_; to Finn, and the vague silhouettes of Rachel and Kurt.

At first, the writing was easy, retelling his trip to the store as practice. He then felt the burning he thought his mom expected, unaware that it would have come as a surprise, when he thought of the girl whose hair and hands had been like Rachel's... He told it in explicit detail; he wrote every qualm that had taken place in his head throughout the arguments and the decisions until his hand ached, until his thumb protested against any further confessions. Then, when he felt he'd given his soul to the devil that was this book, there was only one thing he thought he needed to write.

There was only one thing he _honestly longed _to write. It went against the five pages he just filled with caprice, and so now he didn't try to stop himself: _I think I'm in love with Kurt Hummel._

―

Kurt became aware of the ceased existence of _Rachel-and-Finn_, the experience appropriately logged somewhere amongst the muddle of Finn's disjointed diary entries after enduring an awkward half-hour conversation consisting of a few, brusquely spoken words that were reminiscent of a well-rehearsed script in their even spacing. There remained an unnerving aspect to their truth that Kurt wasn't used to; the conclusion came as an unexpected contradiction to the troubles he heard so many times before.

There was a definite reintroduction of ease and contentment on Kurt's face. The reality of being free of Finn's unbidden woes and the constant telling of them coaxed out a special gleam that had needed to return to his eyes after a few weeks of hiatus. Finn was glad; snug happiness tended to engulf him once in a while when he witnessed the transition for himself. Adrenaline would shoot through his veins for no more than a second at a time, but with enough fervour and fortitude that he felt the warmth for what sometimes felt like hours, or maybe days, afterwards.

Finn constantly let himself glance over at Kurt in Glee club, then in Spanish, then in Math. Lips stretched into wide and comfortable smiles so many times that the occurrences seemed to blur into one. He remembered smiling, but not so much _where_ or _when_; likewise, he remembered always smiling at Kurt while the other always smiled back and let his lips part as if he was about to fondly laugh but finally bow down his perfectly groomed head to hide a blush. Over a series of days, it became so that Kurt no longer had to duck his head, because the blush wasn't there anymore. Why should a brotherly smile be something to get embarrassed about anyway?

Deeper still, Kurt found himself understanding that these smiles were doing nothing for his rehabilitation. In daring to allow himself to return them, Finn's smiles became just one of those despicable pleasures that he granted his heart a chance to enjoy.

* * *

**_Please, please review! I know it's been a while, but they still mean a lot! xxx_**


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